I sure hope you can - I do. It gets tilled under in the fall and has decomposed by spring tilling time.

I used a lot of straw under the half of my garden where I put my vining crops, and I intend to rake it off and pile it up for next year. But the stray bits and chaff will be tilled in too. I think the only thing you shouldn't till in is weeds. Carmellia

Tilling them in isn't really composting in it's purest form, but yes you can - some people call this trench composting although just tilling it in isn't really that either. In any case, if your tomatoes or peppers show any signs of disease you are better of removing them and discarding. The diseases will live over in the soil or on the leaves/stalks that you till in.

If you use hot composting, the tomatoes can go in too as the heat will kill the seeds and you will not get a lot of seedlings.

There's a great forum here on soil/compost/mulch that is well worth your time of reading if you are interested in the subject.

thanks guys!! I will take a look

Something else to be aware of is that tomato stalks and "woody" stalks/vines don't decompose quickly if put in whole. At least that's been my experience the last two years. This year I hope to put them through the shredder prior to composting and see if that helps.

Things that need shredding: tomato stalks, bean vines, corn stalks, sunflower stalks. I only have a couple pepper plants, so I don't know if their stalks rotted well or not. But they look thick and woody. I'll bet they don't.